Pecking Order for a Passenger Seat
by Latebloomnriter
Summary: One possible scenario for the first encounter between Buz Murdock and Linc Case; plus what happened to Buz since he was last seen.


Pecking Order for a Passenger Seat

While it is presumptuous to try to add to the great writing and stories on Route 66, they move me to envision what may have come next.

Note: To the best of my knowledge and belief, this story is fair use of copyrighted material, as there is no commercial use and no loss of potential market or value of the original material will occur.

When a person has lived through a prolonged physical or emotional ordeal, he or she faces two outcomes: let the pain linger long enough to prevent a full recovery, or savor the returned health as something even sweeter. Buz Murdock was determined to have the latter outcome.

He had been flat on his back for months, with pain in his head from a ringing in his ear and a relapse of a viral infection. The pain was so bad, that he thought-when he was capable of thought-that his head was going to explode. The virus that caused the ringing had also spiked his fever, at one point soaring so high that the doctors weren't should he would live through it. They called Tod as his next of kin, and Tod had set new speed records back to Cleveland to be at Buz's side. By the time Tod arrived, the worst had passed, the fever dropped, and the pain in Buz's head had receded to a tolerable level. That seemed to be the turning point.

Buz began to feel better, well enough for Tod to resume his travels. He had not originally wanted to leave the area when Buz was first hospitalized for this second time, but the mounting medical bills had sent him back on the road to travel solo. The men remained in contact, with Tod routinely admonishing his friend to heal.

Months of incapacitation had left Buz in a weakened state, and he had to relearn how to use his body. It had taken an effort even to hold his head up, but he progressed well enough to be discharged from the hospital and enter a rehab facility.

It seemed as if it would be a matter of time before Buz would rejoin Tod, but complications quickly appeared. It would take months for Buz to regain his full strength, and there was some question that he would ever fully recover. He would make some progress, and then suffer a minor relapse which erased any gains. After a couple of relapses, Buz came to the decision that it was time to let Tod go, and send him on his way.

Tod fought the idea and refused to accept that their time on the road together had come to a final end. Wasn't Buz still improving, though more slowly than they had hoped? It would take a different tactic to move Tod along, so Buz pretended that their journey would still continue one day, because Tod needed to believe it. Tod could return to the road, sending money to their joint account and helping to pay the massive hospital bills and bills for the rehab facility. If he felt like taking on a new traveling companion, he could and should do so, if only to save on expenses. Of course, it would only be until Buz could travel again. Or so Buz let Tod believe.

Rehab continued to be a slow process. There would be a step or two forward, then a step or two backwards. Buz starting measuring his progress in weeks, and then months. _Last month I couldn't sit up for ten minutes. Now I can sit up for half an hour. I walked 100 feet before I lost my breath. Now I can walk 200 feet. _

He had been in the rehab facility for a couple of months when the letter came from Tod. Buz was not surprised at the contents, but it was bittersweet. He had always known, better than Tod, that it would happen, and it was best for Tod.

_I met a guy, and after the requisite clash, we have decided to travel together for a bit. His name is Lincoln Case, and he's a big, quiet, simple guy from Texas. He was recently in the Army, and though he's an uncomplicated sort he's been through some rough times overseas and they have left a mark. He's an expert in some special techniques for self- defense, so he can certainly help save my carcass! Since he left the service, he's on a journey like ours and is trying to find his place in the world. He's not exactly an orphan, as both parents are living, but he and his father always had difficulty understanding each other. As I said, he's quiet, so it feels different to hear the occasional words coming from the passenger seat in a Texas drawl, when I still miss the constant sounds of Hell's Kitchen in my ear._

_I am keeping our bank account open in Denver, and have another joint account with Linc. I am continuing to pay down the bills, and I don't want to hear an argument from you about it. You would do the same for me._

_Always,_

_Tod_

Buz had mixed feelings about the news. Sure, he was glad that Tod found a companion, but was this the right cat? Some of the description worried him. Tod liked to talk, _needed_ to talk, and be challenged on his ideas, even as he challenged Buz's thinking in turn. Buz would sometimes get long letters from Tod, revealing his unrest about something, and needing some sort of advice or support. There were some strained phone calls too, when Tod was obviously upset and a letter would take too long. During those conversations Buz would silently curse Linc Case, for not providing Tod with the support he needed, not recognizing how important his role as partner was to see Tod through his journey intact and ready to grab that star. That meant not only physical support against the slobs or better elements, but advising on whatever flipped chick of the minute that Tod had fallen for. Buz did his best over the phone and in writing, and he felt that Tod seemed back on an even keel after their conversations.

The rehab facility represented a period of limbo for Buz. He was well enough to leave the hospital, but not well enough to take on any kind of regular job. Eventually he was discharged as well from the rehab facility, and set about looking for work. He found a job as a night janitor in a gym. It was good setup for him. All that mattered was that he has the place cleaned up and ready by morning. Still weakened, it would take him hours longer than it would have before his illness. He would have to stop and rest several times, but he had the gym ready each morning.

There was another bonus at the gym. Buz began using the equipment himself. He began punching the heavy bag, shocking himself at the weakness of his punches, muscles of his core, and legs. _Pathetic. I can't punch my way out of a paper bag like this. _He would keep at it, until his knuckles were red and raw and his whole body ached, but it was a good kind of hurt. Gradually, he began regaining some muscle tone and weight, and began feeling better.

As his strength improved, he switched to part time work at the gym and found a second janitorial job at a nightclub. He parlayed from working after hours into working during operating hours doing cleanup, and got an idea for something more. He would try to be a bartender. After all, there were bars wherever he and Tod had traveled, so he would actually have a profession if he was ever able to take to the road again. Tod had complimented him on his planning, and sent over a list of phonetically spelled wines to further Buz's education. The club sometimes had live music, and on jazz nights he coaxed the musicians to let him play around on the drums and piano. The professional musicians expressed some surprise at his knowledge and skill and he discovered he had more talent than he realized.

A milestone passed when he finally felt well enough to be with a woman.

A trip to Euclid Park resulted in another opportunity. Buz came across Willard and Richie McIntyre on an outing. Richie had been enthusiastic at seeing him; Willard cordial with the usual small talk about what Buz was doing now. I might have something, offered Willard, and promised to send over a list of job openings among his extensive holdings. Buz had balked at first, but Willard assured him that he would only be offered something he could do, or learn, so Buz accepted. Tod had scolded him for hesitating. "Connections, my friend, make the world go around. You don't think my Yale classmates are working now because they scored highest on an interview or aptitude test, do you? Live like the better element: use people!"

Buz did find a job of interest on the list. McIntyre had a fleet of barges working the rivers and Great Lakes, some to be towed, some motorized. It had once seemed like soaring to incredible heights to captain a tug or operate a barge when he first worked for Tod's father. Now he had come full cycle. The long hours-a week on the boat, then off, didn't appeal to him, nor was he confident he had the full strength for it, but Willard offered him a deal with regular, limited hours that Buz suspected was a form of payback. He decided to accept anyway, and quit the part time job at the gym.

The letter from Tod announcing his marriage came as a shock. _Well, old buddy, I finally found it. I have grabbed my star. It's not a special job, or place, but a woman. By the time you get this I will be on my honeymoon with the lovely Margo. It was completely unexpected, and it happened over the period of a week! You know me, never one to wait long. Her late father arranged for use to meet, during the reading of his will no less, thinking we would be a good match. I can't argue with that. She's beautiful, smart, has an independent and successful career trading commodities. It's a man's world, but she has succeeded there. I am enclosing a picture from the honeymoon._

The photo showed Margo was tall, blonde, and gorgeous, as Tod had said, with more dangerous curves than they ever found on any side road off Route 66. Her big career selling commodities-whatever those were-set off alarm bells for Buz.

Tod anticipated Buz's reaction. _I know what you must be thinking. Margo may be very well off and successful, but she is NOT Prudence Adams, trying to arrange my life. I wear the pants in the family. We'll settle in Houston at her place at first, but we plan on buying a house with the inheritance from her father, and I may start a business. So plan on visiting us, or better yet, consider moving down here too! _Buz knew too well Tod's habit of falling in love very quickly, with poor results, but he held back his misgivings and wrote a note of congratulations.

The timing of Tod's marriage was nearly a year from the time when he and Buz last saw each other and split up. By that time Buz had recovered his physical strength, but something else wasn't right. _I'm still not myself. It's like everything I see and feel is blurred, without sharp edges like I used to have. I feel all right, but when was "all right" ever enough? There are no great heights or crushing falls. I'm floating on still water, when I need some stormy seas, even when I create the rough waves myself._

Everything came together at once.

Buz was making small payments to the hospital and rehab facility to reduce the thousands of dollars of debt that had built up. Then the letters came from both places. The balances were paid in full; in fact, he received refunds from both for overpayment. Both places gave him the same answer when he called: Tod had paid off both bills in their entirety, leaving Buz with a small nest egg for himself. Tod was adamant when Buz called demanding an explanation. "I wanted this for you," he said. It was the first payment he had made from Margo's inheritance, and she was in complete agreement. Tod fended Buz off again with his trump card: "You would have done the same for me." Buz thought that if Margo really was on the up and up about this, he could get to like this girl.

"Come down and stay with us. We bought this house, and it needs some fixing up, even has a guest house. I'm still looking around for a business, too. Maybe we can work it together, like we always planned."

"I don't know, Tod. Me and Texas...I haven't had great luck there." That was an understatement. He had been kidnapped and nearly killed, blinded, and taken a few beatings.

"Just think about it, and call me soon. I can use your help."

That was it then. After only a couple of months of marriage, something wasn't going well. How much help could Buz be, if he wasn't fully himself?

He was behind the bar that night when he heard one of the waitresses raising her voice. One of the customers had her by the arm. Buz felt the rage exploding up in him like it used to, burning hot and fast. Before he could even think about it, he was up over the bar and on the man in seconds, unleashing the cursing along with his fists and throwing the man up against the wall. "You want to pick on somebody, ya stupid slob, try me. Or get out of while you can still scratch your nose without a cast, because I'll break both your arms." Buz was rough and furious, and finally fully alive.

He called Tod that night to say he was coming for a visit. The SOS had been heard, and would be answered.

Buz would take a series of buses to a station north of Dallas, a few hours from Houston. "I'll pick you up, we'll have a long ride like old times," said Tod. Margo was perfectly agreeable, he insisted. He had a hall pass to take his time; they would take a side trip and have dinner in Waco. Margo wouldn't wait up, and would have a long overdue girls' night out with her friends.

Linc Case, to his surprise, enjoyed his visit home in Landor. He and his father both became choked up at seeing each other, and after both made an effort found they were able to have a real conversation. Linc had lingered for a bit, taking on a few short term jobs while he stayed with his family and thinking about the next step in his life's journey. Margo's call a few months after Linc and Tod had split changed the routine. Tod seemed to be floundering, she said. While he was happy working on their new house, he seemed unable to settle on a job or start a new business that would leave him fulfilled. Instead he was focusing on having earnings comparable to her own without a real passion for any jobs or businesses he considered. Margo loved the calculations and dealings with commodity trading, and she wanted Tod's career to give him equal satisfaction. She thought too that he was lonely and missed having a man to talk to and trust. After years of traveling with a close friend, she thought a friend could help him sort out what he wanted to do. Would Linc be willing to visit, and maybe stay in the area and work with Tod? Linc would, if his friend needed him. He needed to travel to Dallas for one of his short term jobs and be out of touch briefly a few days, but would take a bus to Houston in a few days.

The station was a large crossroad point for traffic heading in all directions from Dallas. Located north of the city, it was sited on a frontage road off the main highway. There were large parking lots on both sides of the station, separated from the main depot by an iron fence and gait so travelers could gather for the buses safely.

Linc took a seat at the north end of the building. It was closer to the pickup point for buses heading south to Houston, and was less crowded. He was reading a magazine when a young man sat a few seat away opposite him. He dropped a suitcase and a small, two handled duffel at his feet, and began reading a newspaper. He wore a watch with the face on the inside of his wrist, Linc noticed. He had only seen men do this when they were in the service, or worked with their hands. After a couple of minutes, Linc had an uncomfortable sensation of being near someone projecting an intense energy and impatience. It was like being near a coiled spring, ready to go off when someone touched the trigger. The man, lean and dark, paused every minute or so to look down the row of windows toward traffic coming north. A couple of times he stood, staring toward the cars entering the parking lot, tense and motionless like a bird dog on point. He didn't seem to see what-or who- he was waiting for, and he soon sit down again and rub his knuckles and glance at his watch before briefly returning to his paper.

Another man approached them, heavyset with a gut hanging over a large belt buckle. He stopped in front of the dark man. "You. Muchacho. The Mexicans wait outside."

Linc watched this from the corner of his eyes. He was no fan of prejudice, having come from a brotherhood in the Army. He would be ready so that there would be no trouble. He saw the dark eyes of the coiled spring become more heated and intense, and then Linc heard the man speak for the first time.

"Yeah? I guess they know that's where the best company goes."

Linc glanced over now. The words were spoken with an accent, but it wasn't Spanish. This was the sound of the mean streets of New York. Linc had known soldiers from there, tough kids who were fought even tougher and meaner after training-sometimes, even against the enemy. He abandoned the mental image of a coiled spring, replaced it with a rattlesnake starting to shake its tail in warning.

The other man flushed. "Now see here.."

"Mister, do you know how to say 'hospital' in Spanish? Because if you don't go adios right now, I'm going to send you there."

The rattler was staring hard, and tight muscles were showing along his jaw. The other man backed off, and they heard him talking to his companions after his retreat. "Not Mexican. Italian or something, from up north."

Linc upgraded the man from rattler to badger. Not very big, but fierce enough to fight well above his weight without giving up. The badger turned his eyes toward Linc, having seen his interest and wondering if he was another problem. Linc made a gesture of appeasement to signal that he wasn't a threat. "I just didn't want to see any trouble."

Buz had already sized up Linc, noting the ramrod straight posture and the reserved way he held himself. A military man. Buz had seen a number of them growing up, most vividly after the end of World War II. As a small boy he would sneak into movie theaters to watch war movies, and the action and valor caught his imagination. The returning soldiers didn't match the screen heroes, though. While he was too young to understand, he sensed a difference in them from civilians who stayed behind. He felt a pain and unease in some of them, and felt a certain kinship. In his teens he felt the difference more acutely when the veterans returned from Korea. There was the pain and anger in some of them as from a great ordeal, and a remoteness suggesting that only another combat soldier could understand. Some were focused on a better life for themselves; some were searching; and Buz admired them for that. He sensed that now in the man across from him.

"Been out long?" he asked.

"What?"

"Army?"

Linc was surprised. "I didn't know it was obvious. About a year. I'm adjusting to being a civilian again."

"Obvious if you know what to look for."

"It's easier now than when I first got out. The people at home-I come from a small town- seem to understand more about what it was like over there, and what to honor-or not-in a soldier, and what we want." _Why did I say that?_ Linc wondered. Something about this stranger made him open up. Maybe because he was a stranger.

"That's not what happened." The badger was matter- of-fact. "Unless something big happens, towns like yours, they don't change. You do. It's like light breaking through the fog, only the fog isn't in the air, it's in your head. If you experience enough, see enough, _feel _enough, it's like a searchlight in your head comes on and cuts through the fog and lets you see things how they are, and how they really were." He shrugged, and rubbed his knuckles again, glanced at his watch, and went back to reading his paper.

Simple as they were, the words hit home for Linc. Could this understanding from the people at home have been there all along, if he had spoken and reached out more instead of being silent and rebelling, running a little wild? Perhaps he had been wrong in thinking the town wanted to honor a killer when he returned. His attempts to answer to himself were distracted when the badger spoke again.

"What, you thought you were the only guy from home who was overseas? No one else from there ever served in the War or Korea?" There was mockery in the tone, and Linc saw the badger smirk and shake his head in a bit of scorn as he read his paper.

This stranger not only made people open up, he also inspired them to want to punch him in the mouth. Linc wondered how he managed to keep any of his teeth. He couldn't imagine traveling for hours and days with this man. He could be a jerk as unpredictably as he could be wise.

Some good intentions, but not very smart. Too quiet and probably boring. Buz couldn't imagine traveling for hours and days with this man. He would put a cat to sleep.

Buz's last remark ended their conversation. Linc returned to his magazine and tried to put away his annoyance. Buz ignored Linc and continued to look down the row of windows and check his watch.

An hour later Linc saw the badger stand up abruptly, focusing on the frontage road and then staring out at the parking lot. He grabbed his suitcase and duffel and walked quickly to the doors, pausing only when a crowd of new arrivals blocked his way to the exit.

Moments later, Linc heard the sound. It was the unmistakable sound of a sports car engine being revved. He knew that sound well from the Corvette. He could see it now from the window, and the reddish hair of the driver when he turned off the frontage road into the parking lot. Linc didn't remember telling Margo exactly when he would head to Houston, but he supposed he must have and Tod didn't want to wait for the bus. He had come to meet Linc in person.

Linc made his way toward the door. The incoming passengers slowed his progress, and he noted with some satisfaction that that the badger was still ahead of him, impatiently trying to weave his way out. Through the window, a sedan was moving slowly through the lot, looking for a parking place it. The badger certainly seemed eager to meet the driver of the sedan, thought Linc. Poor girl or guy. Behind it, Tod had stopped the Corvette, and gunned the engine a couple of times again in signal. He pulled forward then toward the next empty space.

The badger was finally through the mass of passengers. He stopped at the railing and heaved the duffel over it into the lot. Then he threw the suitcase over to land on it. Ignoring the gait, he grasped the railing and hoisted up, putting one foot on top and jumping over it. He started walking very fast across the lot, and then broke into a jog. He jogged right past the sedan, straight to the Corvette.

Tod scrambled out the seat, beaming so that his ear-to-ear grin didn't even seem adequate. Linc raised his hand, but stopped in mid-wave. Tod had intercepted the badger, and they grabbed each other by the shoulders.

Buz Murdock. The badger had to be Buz Murdock, Tod's traveling partner before Linc. Margo had said nothing about him visiting Tod, so Linc supposed it was settled after he had spoken with Margo, and was out of touch in Dallas. He suspected that Tod and Murdock had stayed in contact, having seen thick letters go back and forth, and sometimes a package was sent. Tod almost never mentioned him though. Sometimes Linc walked in on the tail end of a phone conversation, which could be either warm and amusing, or sharp and heated. Had that been Murdock? There were times too when Tod was especially troubled by something. He would indicate that he wanted to be alone, but his hand would reach for the telephone before Linc was fully out the door. Linc imagined now that those calls too were to Buz Murdock.

Linc could see Tod laughing and gesturing toward the railing, as if pointing out the absurdity of jumping over it when there was a perfectly good gait next to it, and Murdock shrugging with outstretched palms, as if to say what else could he do?

"You just had to jump over it, didn't you? Nothing so normal as opening a simple gait, or was the latch too complicated?"

"Listen, buddy, I wanted to keep the conversation short and end any debate, so I needed some way to show you. I really am okay."

They draped an arm over each other's shoulder, and walked back to where Murdock had tossed his luggage. Tod took the suitcase, and Murdock picked up the duffel, tossing it between his hands as they walked to the Corvette. Linc could see them talking over each other, all smiles, even from the previously prickly badger. This was a relationship he would never understand.

Tod strapped the suitcase to the luggage rack, and Murdock flipped the duffel over to him. Linc watched Murdock place a hand on the car door and vault over it, landing precisely and perfectly in the passenger seat, as if it had been made for him, and was waiting for him.

Tod threw the car in reverse and they exited the parking lot. Leaving the frontage road, Tod hit the pedal hard once they were on the highway.

Tod and Buz Murdock would have hours together on the road to catch up and share confidences, Tod's latest troubled journey, and life's other problems and promises before they reached Houston. Linc would not be needed. He smiled to himself and turned to look for a phone to call Margo Stiles and tell her something important had happened which was a higher priority; he was sure Tod would be fine; and Linc would visit another time.


End file.
